blackmail
a ygo fanfic by yllimilly
AN: This was written for a contest. I'm not in top shape, and my heart wasn't in it, so I'll pass on concrit this time. Thank you for reading.
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What others call sleepless, Kaiba calls productive.
"Seto."
The CEO's ears perk up to the sound of his little brother's voice, but does not look at him. This code won't fix itself.
"I'm busy."
Mokuba waits - perhaps for a real answer. Then: "I've been waiting in the car for twenty minutes."
"Your mistake."
Another pause. "You said you would come home with me."
"I also told you anything could come up at any moment. I got a call from one of the engineers in Hong Kong," he lies casually.
Mokuba sighs.
"You shouldn't have promised if you knew you weren't going to keep your word."
"You shouldn't have asked if you knew there was a chance I wouldn't keep my word."
Seto finds the bug he was looking for - another of those bloody missing brackets - he fixes it and calls the main function again. His heartbeat accelerates, his breath hitches: he's never been so close to hacking into Pegasus' servers, so close to freedom. His eyes scan the cascading print statements on the screen. The task is 53, 54, 56% complete-
Then an error message appears on the screen.
Kaiba closes his eyes. He breathes deeply until he is calm again.
When he looks up again, Mokuba is gone.
.
Breakfast is the same as usual except that Mokuba requests a cup of coffee.
The maid blinks, glances at Kaiba, then at Mokuba's orange juice, then at the master of the house again. Kaiba doesn't react. The maid smiles and asks Mokuba how he would like his coffee, then leaves for the kitchen, casting a last glance in Kaiba's intention - but his eyes are riveted on Mokuba.
Mokuba gives him an incredulous look. "What?"
"Nothing."
"I don't believe you."
"You're a little bit young to start drinking coffee. But I'm not here to tell you what to do."
"I'm fourteen."
"How astute."
Mokuba rolls his eyes.
Today is scrambled tofu and buckwheat pancakes with vegan butter substitute. Kaiba looks at the weather forecast on his tablet - for the fifth time. Overcast. Not that he was planning to go on a picnic. He needs to hack into Pegasus' servers as soon as possible; he could make changes to his IT infrastructure anytime. He is so close; he needs to act fast.
"I won't be coming home with you tonight, Mokuba."
"I didn't ask."
.
Somehow, Seto found himself bringing the discarded newspaper to work. It is proving to be a potent distractor.
There is a special yearly report on startups and the giants who buy them.
Kaiba Corp is not on the list of biggest acquirers.
It has never been. Well technically it could have been, during Gozaburo's days, if the founder hadn't been so fond of, and terribly skilled at blackmailing, himself.
In one of the more in-depth articles there is a slightly dated (two months) quote by a certain Seto Kaiba stating he wants to "beat the startups at what they do by hiring the best talent". Seto remembers that infuriating interview and wants to slap himself. Luckily though, the reporter had been too dumb to have called his bluff.
That night, Seto is so deep in frustration he manages negative productivity - he types more bugs than actual code. He gives up two hours too late and comes back home.
Perhaps he can spend some time with Mokuba.
When he sees him engrossed in video games, he decides against it. Let the kid be a kid.
.
Mokuba takes a well-timed sip of his coffee and drops the Finance section to the dining table.
"I told you you should have bought that startup."
Kaiba scowls. "Hindsight is twenty twenty." He's not foolish enough to claim it would have been a bad decision or to explain his real motives. Having to lie to his little brother is even more humiliating than lying to the press.
"Now Pegasus is going to have better touch screen technology than us," Mokuba feels the need to explain.
"You're just a kid," Seto snaps. "You don't quite grasping what it means to do business."
"I'm not stupid. Everyone is 'grapsing' " - Mokuba airquotes for emphasis - "that we're falling behind Industrial Illusions. We're falling behind in sales - "
"Oh, so you can count." Seto bites back. "Surely that entitles you to tell me how to run my business."
"I'm so sick of you babying me." Mokuba almost yells.
Seto hadn't quite expected the outburst. He opens his mouth to speak -
"If I'm just a kid, then why did you make me vice-president?"
"To make you happy," Seto blurts, putting more snarl than he'd like in the last word.
Mokuba scowls. "Well I'm not," he mumbles before storming out of the dining room, and Seto pretends he hasn't heard anything.
.
Mokuba doesn't text him at all that day.
Not that Kaiba misses the constant interruption.
He should be happy about that, right? One less annoyance to deal with.
Maybe I was a little hard on him, he thinks during the conference call with the factory managers in Mexico.
I shouldn't have infantilized him. That'll stifle his self-confidence, he thinks during the meeting with the R&D team.
He doesn't know about Pegasus. I shouldn't vent on him like that, he thinks as he watches his secretary place a pot of green tea on his desk.
I wonder if he's upset, he wonders at dinner time - the one weekly dinner they are scheduled to spend together. He looks up from his computer screen and takes in the room around him.
It is is clean, silent. vacant.
He pulls his personal cell phone from the top drawer on his desk and slides through his contacts until his eyes find the word Mokie. Looks away again. The city is winding down. People are going to their homes. Maybe he's out doing something else. He slides his thumb to the power button, hovers, lingers, hesitates, then switches the phone off.
He feels strange.
Perhaps he should turn it back on. Just in case.
Well, the kid is not a child anymore, right?
Somehow, Kaiba glances so often at the device he has to lock it in a drawer. After two hours of fruitless attempts at coding, he shuts everything down and leaves.
.
"So… How was your day?"
"Hm?"
"Yesterday."
"Meh. It was just a day." Mokuba tries to suppress a smile and takes a sip of his orange juice.
Seto waits for the rest of the story.
Mokuba takes a bite of his toast.
"Well, it sounds like you had a good day."
"Maybe." This time, Mokuba doesn't even try to hide the smile.
"So what did you do? I didn't-" hear from you all day, Seto wants to say. He looks away.
Apparently Mokuba isn't too concerned with what the rest of Kaiba's sentence would be.
"You'll see."
Mokuba plays some farming game on his smartphone. Where has his resolve for worldliness gone? The newspaper lays untouched, forgotten under the teenager's hoodie.
Kaiba tugs on the paper, which slides from under the garment. From the corner of his eye he can see Mokuba glancing at him, at the paper.
Kaiba Corporation Acquires GibTech Enterprises
Kaiba blinks at his own name.
Kaiba Corporation Acquires GibTech Enterprises
Kaiba Corporation Acquires
"Mokuba."
"What."
"Look at me."
Mokuba looks up. His cheeks take on a pinkish glow.
"What is it?" He fakes an air of innocence.
Seto shoves the paper before him. The thick pile slaps the table.
"I get it. You wanted to prove yourself. You did. Undo this."
"No. I'm vice-president."
Kaiba wants to says something, to move, but he can't. Mokuba's eyes widen; he turns a shade of deep red and begins to stutter. "I- I got us a good deal, I-"
"Leave."
.
This really should be dealt with in person. But time is not a luxury Kaiba has. He doesn't even bother cancelling his appointments and beelines - races - for his bedroom.
He sits at his desk, places his throbbing hands flat on the cold wooden surface and forces himself to inflate and deflate his chest at a painfully slow rhythm.
After a minute of staring at his personal cell phone, he realizes that his heart rate won't slow down. He takes a breath so deep it hurts the base of his throat, then locates MP Personnal in his contacts.
"What took you so long, Kaiba-boy?" rings Pegasus' singsong voice.
Kaiba chooses to forgo the rhetorical question.
"I can explain."
Kaiba swears he can hear Pegasus smile at the other end of the line.
"Well, explain away, my dear."
"It's Mokuba," he says a second before he can realize the stupidity of the excuse and of granting full privileges to a minor on their fourteenth birthday.
"Your dog ate your homework?"
Seto deems it wiser not to address the remark - or to speak at all.
He can hear the clinking of a glass at the other end of the line. And then a chuckle.
"Don't worry, Kaiba-boy."
Seto waits again, turns up the volume of his device. He can hear his heart beating in his ear.
He hears no sound at the other end of the line, and thinks the line might have cut off. He doesn't want to sound like a fool for verifying; he'll take the agonizing uncertainty instead.
"Buying all those startups was getting dull, anyway."
He doesn't want to know what Pegasus is insinuating.
"Why don't I buy more expensive toys instead?"
Seto's mouth goes dry. He knows what he is after. The startups were just child's play.
"Why don't you give me something for my birthday?"
Seto's heart does a double take. The date is tomorrow.
"I'm sure you can think of some creative ideas, my dear. Think of something, and be the first to wish me happy birthday, hm?"
Then Pegasus hangs up.
.
He loses the next ten hours trying to hack into Pegasus' computers, just to get some dirt of his own on his rival, to disarm him.
To no avail.
At ten he decides to read the memos and minutes of the meetings he's missed during the day.
At eleven he pours himself a glass of scotch.
He could let Pegasus buy some of his personal shares, and buy back those from his other investors.
Or he could… not. He doesn't have to.
Reputation is not the same as character. Reputation is what people say of you, Character is who you really are. Nothing else matters, after all.
Nothing can change who I am.
He hears a knock on the door, and his little brother's timid voice. "Seto."
Kaiba doesn't turn around to meet him. His eyes are glued to the city lights. He doesn't want to admit it, but he really loves this office for the view. "Come on in."
He hears Mokuba's footsteps come closer.
"The lawyers are trying to find a way to undo it."
Seto sighs. He forgot about the startup - how trivial the purchase has become. "I appreciate it. You can keep it. It was a good idea."
"I- I should have asked you before." Mokuba takes a deep breath for courage. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry I got angry," Seto says simply. It came off easier than he'd thought.
They look at the city lights for a few sweet, long, blissful minutes.
A small beep interrupts the silence.
"Can you wait for me in the car, Mokuba? There's a call I need to make."
Mokuba says nothing. Then he starts walking to the door.
"I'll be there in five minutes. I promise."
"Okay."
Kaiba listens to his fading footsteps. He looks at his phone for a long moment. Locates MP Personal in his contacts.
Then he turns it off. He doesn't have to be Pegasus' puppet.
He jogs to the end of the hallway and catches the elevator just in time to ride it with Mokuba.
"I'm all done," he says with a smile.
Mokuba smiles back.
.
Next morning is, ridiculously enough, sunny. Mokuba's good mood translates into a massive appetite.
"You should have some pancakes! They're yummy!"
Unfortunately, the appetite isn't contagious. Seto can hardly be hungry when he dreads the creative retribution Pegasus has for him.
"You're not reading your paper?"
Mokuba seems to consider the invitation for a moment. "No, I'm fine." He's had a cup of coffee ordered, but hasn't touched it. "I only get to see you in the morning, so..."
Seto allows himself to smile - a private smile, that is. "I'm curious to see what's in the news." He deserves the award for the world's greatest understatement.
There is no mention of the word Kaiba on the front page. Pegasus might have had a change of heart. He unfolds the paper and proceeds to flip through the pages.
Apparently, his personal woes are third page material only. Bizarrely enough, he finds himself wondering whether he should feel offended about this. Something about 'shocking' childhood secrets 'revealed' by a 'close friend of the Kaiba family'. It looked like Pegasus used his ace in the sleeve. There are no pictures, but the odd detail that his eyes manages to catch feels accurate enough.
"Is there anything interesting?" Mokuba asks.
"It's a long story."
.